Orrick Advises Four Tech Startups on Acquisitions by Amazon, Dropbox, Yahoo! and Adobe

​In the first half of 2013, Orrick advised four technology startups on their acquisitions by Amazon, Dropbox, Yahoo! and Adobe, showcasing the combined and complementary strengths of the firm’s emerging companies practice and mergers and acquisitions practice. Orrick acts for the world's leading enterprise and social technology companies of which a selection of those originate from our more than 1,200 emerging company clients.

In April 2013, Orrick represented Goodreads, a world-leading book sharing site with more than 16 million members, in its acquisition by Amazon. As a result of the transaction, Amazon will benefit from a much deeper social media connection to complement its Kindle e-reader community and a number of other valuable consumer tools, including expanded book review archives. The Orrick team included partners Harold Yu, Mark Seneca, Mitch Zuklie, Daniel Friedland, Steve Malvey, Christine McCarthy and Daniel Yost, of counsel Patricia Zeigler, associates Amanda Galton, Andrew Fong, Kimberly Loocke and Michael Yang, and paralegal Kathryn Montalvo.

In March 2013, Orrick represented Orchestra, Inc., in its acquisition by Dropbox. Founded in 2010, Orchestra is responsible for creating the Mailbox email application for mobile devices which allows users to access their email in a more streamlined, user-friendly and efficient way. Just one week after Mailbox's beta release, Orchestra had a waiting list of more than 700,000 consumers queuing up for access to the app. The Orrick team included partners Stephen Venuto, Mark Seneca, Christine McCarthy, Steve Malvey and Daniel Yost, of counsel Patricia Zeigler, and associates Joseph Perkins, Rob Poulsen and Michael Yang.

In January 2013, Orrick represented Snip.it, a social bookmarking service, on its acquisition by Yahoo! Founded in 2011, Snip.it allows users to clip content as they browse the Internet and add commentary before adding it to their personal collections. The Orrick team included partners Mark Seneca, Harold Yu and Steve Malvey, and associates Vivian Lo and Michael Yang.

In June 2013, Orrick advised Neolane, a privately held digital marketing company headquartered in Paris, France, on its $600 million all cash acquisition by Adobe Systems. Backed by French and U.S. venture capital firms, Neolane, which was named to Forbes’ 2013 America’s Most Promising Companies list, provides a platform through which companies can manage and automate their marketing across the Web, social media and mobile. Neolane’s customers include global companies such as Barnes & Noble Inc., Christian Dior SA, AXA Group, Inter Ikea Systems BV, Samsung Electronics Co. Ltd. and Sony Corp. The Paris- and U.S.-based Orrick team included partners John Bautista, Saam Golshani and Mark Seneca, of counsel Ben Cichostepski and associate Anna Leitchenko.

Stephen Venuto, a partner who works out of both the Silicon Valley and San Francisco offices, is a member of the Technology Companies group. His practice focuses on advising high-growth technology and media companies and their founders, advisors and investors.

Steve was Facebook’s first lawyer and is widely recognized as
one of the leading startup lawyers in the country. The American Lawyer recently named him “Dealmaker of the
Year”, recognizing his corporate work and representation of Instagram in its
sale to Facebook, and quoting a prominent board member as saying that Steve “is
an outstanding lawyer, but he’s also an outstanding business partner . . . [He]
is someone who cares about everybody [who’s] involved in a company.” In
September of 2013, the Daily Journal named
him to its list of Top 100 Lawyers in California. In February of 2014, the Daily Journal named him to its inaugural
Top Emerging Companies Lawyers list.

Numerous standout technology companies and their founders have
turned to Steve for representation including Asana, Bleacher Report (sold to
Time Warner), Facebook, Instagram (sold to Facebook), Mailbox/Orchestra (sold
to Dropbox), Ooma, Pinterest, ResearchGate and Quora. He also works with new
media companies including Brit & Co., Full Picture Productions (executive
producer of Project Runway), Say Media, U2, Upworthy and Zuckerberg Media.
Steve provides general corporate legal counseling and represents companies at
all stages of their life-cycle.

Practice:

Mark Seneca, a Corporate partner in the Silicon Valley office, is a member of Orrick’s M&A and Private Equity Group as well as its Technology Companies Group. Mark has dedicated his legal career to the M&A specialty, with experience in all aspects of mergers and acquisitions transactions involving both public and private companies in domestic and cross-border deals.

Mark has a particular focus on the technology
sector, having led hundreds of buy-side and sell-side transactions involving
prominent high-tech serial acquirers, unicorns and venture back companies. His sell-side work involves multiple acquisitions
by Google, Facebook, Salesforce.com, VMware, Amazon, Microsoft, Intel, IBM,
Adobe, Yahoo! and Twitter. These deals
include his high profile work for Cruise Automation in its acquisition by
General Motors, Nest Labs in its US$3.2 billion acquisition by Google, and
Instagram in its US$1.0 billion acquisition by Facebook, which was ranked one
of the top 10 largest valued private tech M&A deals in the U.S. in 2012. In
an interview with Bloomberg Law for a “Rainmakers” episode, Mark
provided a substantive analysis of the Instagram deal, including its industry
precedent and influence (click here).

On
the buy-side, Mark has served as lead M&A counsel for top public company
acquirers (Apple, Yelp, Google, Yahoo! and Intellisync) as well as private company
serial acquirers (Stripe, Pinterest and Social Finance).

Harold Yu is a partner in Orrick's Technology Companies Group. Harold is based in Orrick's Silicon Valley and San Francisco offices.

Harold advises technology companies and has significant experience with venture capital financings, debt financings, public offerings, mergers & acquisitions and technology transactions. He is deeply interested in technology. Prior to law school, Harold was a software engineer at Oracle Corporation and an intern at NASA Ames Research Center.

Practice:

Mitchell Zuklie serves as the global Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of Orrick.

He is an experienced business and legal advisor who has completed hundreds of venture capital financings and numerous public offerings, mergers, acquisitions and licensing transactions. He counsels technology companies at all stages of their life cycles, as well as their founders, advisors and investors. Representative clients have included Nest Labs, Planet Labs, Nanosolar, eHarmony, Royal Dutch Shell, Kleiner Perkins, Benchmark Capital, Pandora, Oracle, Goldman Sachs, Martha Stewart Living, Bessemer Venture Partners and Sequoia Capital. Recent transactions he has led include, among others, Nest Labs' announced $3.2 billion sale to Google, and Goodreads' sale to Amazon.com.

Named by Chambers USA as an “eminent practitioner,” Mitch has been described as a “terrific all-around lawyer” known for “common sense and business judgment.” Daily Journal named him to its lists of Top Emerging Companies Lawyers and Top Clean Tech Lawyers. Lawdragon recognizes him as “one of the nation's top tech dealmakers and advisors.”

Since Mitch became Orrick's chairman and CEO in 2013, the firm has pursued a strategy to be a leading advisor to the global Technology, Energy & Infrastructure and Finance sectors. The firm has entered new markets, including Abidjan, Houston, Santa Monica and Geneva. In addition, the firm has been at the forefront of innovation in the delivery of legal services. Mitch created the firm’s Women’s Leadership Board, comprising senior executives of several of the world’s most respected companies, to advise on how to accelerate progress in advancing women lawyers. The firm has also innovated to recruit, inspire and advance millennial and diverse talent. In recognition of Mitch’s leadership, Financial Times named him one of the 10 most innovative lawyers in North America.

Mitch serves on the Board of the Berkeley Center for Law, Business and the Economy and on the Advisory Boards of the Stanford Law School Center on the Legal Profession and the Harvard Law School Center on the Legal Profession. He also serves on the Board of the Wild Salmon Center. Before joining Orrick, he was a Director at Venture Law Group.

He and his wife, Holly, have been married for more than 20 years. They have two children, Hannah (18) and Angus (16). Mitch posts regularly on Orrick, venture capital, innovation and other interests. Follow him on Twitter and Instagram.

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